Who discovered electricity?
Who really discovered electricity? Do you picture images of Benjamin Franklin holding a key attached to a kite in a stormy sky? Franklin was lucky all he sustained was a mild shock when that lightning bolt connected to his kite.
First, let’s challenge the word “discovered”. Electricity has been around for thousands of years and wasn’t so much invented as discovered through the millennia. We already explored how ancient Egypt used a form of electricity from a fish source. Forms of electricity are mentioned throughout history, from magnetism to early battery sources to modern electricity. The most common image is of the old man in the powdered wig getting shocked by a lightning bolt.
But was Benjamin Franklin (old man holding the key) really the first person to discover electricity? Maybe not! At the turn of the 17th century, English scientist William Gilbert established the science underlying the study of electricity and magnetism. In 1600 Gilbert’s publication _Electricus _studied static electricity in amber. Gilbert is also credited with inventing the first electrical measuring instrument, called the electroscope.
Inspired by Gilbert’s work, another Englishman, Sir Thomas Browne coined the phrase “electricity” in Epidemica, published in 1646, observing “crystal will calefied (sic) unto electricity, that is, a power to attract strawes (sic) and light bodies and convert the needle freely placed.
Fast-forward to the 1820’s and another Englishman named Michael Farraday: he observed a device that isolated a magnetic pole creating a circular force around a current-carrying wire. Farraday’s early experiments proved that electrical energy could transform into mechanical energy, thus creating the first electric motor.
Go even further to the 1870’s and Thomas Edison is credited with improving upon earlier iterations of the light bulb to a model that could last for over 1200 hours.
Finally, around 1900, a British engineer named Captain Henry Joseph Round discovers electroluminescence: an optical and electrical phenomenon using currents of fields to produce light. We know this phenomenon better as LED lighting.
It just goes to show you that electricity has been around for (literally) thousands of years, and it isn’t so much about discovering or inventing electricity, but about accurately naming and harnessing this natural power that has contributed to so much. Whether it is electricity found in natural sources (Nile catfish) to LED’s that burn for years, it’s fascinating to see how this technology continues to evolve and change!